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Censors issue warnings to two political journals

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"D-Wave" journal, which presents the views of the National League for Democracy

Mizzima News

(Mizzima News/IFEX) - The Burmese government's Press Scrutiny and Development Division (PSRD) has summoned the editors of two political journals after they published material that it said was critical of the government and inappropriate.

The publisher of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party's (RNDP) journal received a warning after publishing an article that criticized the change from a military to a quasi-civilian government, RNDP General-Secretary Oo Hla Saw told Mizzima.

The RNDP's "Toetakyay" journal published an article on 29 February 2012 titled "From a Green Military Uniform Government to a Yellow-Skirt Democracy". A passage that was cited as offensive said: "Something was changing, so I watched the situation and found that the uniforms changed, and I was amazed. Anyway, I'm glad to see the appearance of change. Now the military uniform has changed into Yaw Longyi and a traditional jacket. Later it may be changed into a pale pink skirt and a traditional jacket [for females]."

According to Oo Hla Saw, PSRD deputy director Major Tint Swe issued an order on 23 March summoning the journal's publisher, Myint Naing, to a meeting in which he was warned that certain passages were not in accordance with the policy of the PSRD and were obscene. "He said that the words were too harsh, offensive and rude. We had to sign a pledge to mind our language in the future," Oo Hla Saw told Mizzima. He said the censors also underlined the phrase, "military ogre Ne Win", warning against the use of such language.

"We're sorry that they called us in," said Oo Hla Saw. "It confirms that although the top government officials say that they are implementing reforms, their basic operations have not changed."

In a related case, the PSRD also summoned Ohn Kyaing, the publisher of the National League for Democracy's "D-Wave" journal, concerning a satirical cartoon criticizing the PSRD, which was published in the February issue of the journal.

Nyein Thit, a "D-Wave" editor, told Mizzima a cartoon by "Tha Lain Ma" contained a drawing of clouds labeled "Democratic Sky" and a journal named "Press Freedom", which was trying to fly [into the Democratic Sky] but it [the journal] was chained to the ground. The chain was labeled "Press Scrutiny". "The cartoon criticizes them, and they warned us not to publish a cartoon like that," Nyein Thit said.

During a state-backed gathering in Rangoon, called the "Conference on Media Development in Myanmar", Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said Burma's media sector would have more transparency and freedom in the future. He noted that President Thein Sein, in an address to parliament in March 2011, said a new media law is being drafted, but not with the intention of banning or hampering press freedom. "Our aim is to facilitate the proper use of press freedom for the long term progress of Myanmar's media sector," Kyaw Hsan said.

In the West, media criticism of government is considered a basic freedom and a fundamental right in a democratic society.

In contrast to the remarks by top officials, in March 2012 the Ministry of Mines filed a libel suit against the weekly news journal "The Voice", which published a story saying that some Burmese government ministries were cited for financial transgressions in a report by the Union auditor-general's office. The journal's lawyer, Thein Nyunt, told Mizzima that Section 500 of the libel law is used to repress the media, and he will try to revoke the law in parliament.

Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly persist, amid the government's failure to contend with the range of rights-abusing laws that have been long used to criminalize free speech and prosecute dissidents.As part of the military's "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine State, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims face rampant and systemic human rights violations, the authorities denied independent journalists access to the region since early October.

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The Broadcasting Law, approved in August, enabled private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time. However, it maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, and the Broadcasting Council it established is susceptible to political interference.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

There is some skepticism about how much influence Burma's youth movement can assert in terms of political change. Still, activists have benefited from greater access to the Internet, which has brought a new side to the online community after decades of heavy censorship

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

The media landscape in Burma is more open than ever, as President Thein Sein releases imprisoned journalists and abolishes the former censorship regime. But many threats and obstacles to truly unfettered reporting remain, including restrictive laws held over from the previous military regime. The wider government’s commitment to a more open reporting environment is in doubt.

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